


Working Through It

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Dooku the Rat [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin needs hugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan exacts a promise, and Padmé has a surprise. Anakin's not sure what his life is right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Through It

Obi-Wan was so relieved to be done with that. He was more relieved his instinct to appeal to Bail Organa had panned out; the Alderaanian had a firm hold on the Senate pulse, and was taking the recorded evidence and his peers back to revoke all authority vested in the Chancellor's office to pre-war levels. Palpatine's cronies were going to support that on pain of keeping their noses out of the muck.

Mace Windu and Yoda had taken charge of Dooku, until such time as the Senate chose an appropriate place to keep the man as a prisoner. That was one trial still to come, and Obi-Wan feared how it would go, given Dooku's testimony being so necessary.

That, however, was not his concern now. Before he attempted to get back to the 212th, he wanted to be certain Anakin was stable. So he was waiting when Anakin came back from helping escort the Count to the rarely used security facility within the Temple.

Anakin had been hoping to be able to get clear, to use the chaos of the information already spreading through the Temple to get across the city to his Angel before she was pulled into the Senate for unending hours if not days... but as he neared the main exit, he felt the reassuring presence of his Master long before he saw him. Dread touched him for a heartbeat, two, but then the quiet concern on Obi-Wan's face registered, and the dread slipped away like canyon mist at dawn. 

"Hey," he said as he kept walking towards him, Artoo rolling along at his heels, "what is it? More trouble?" 

"Probably somewhere, but right now… I just wanted to be sure you were steady, Anakin," Obi-Wan said softly. "What you must have gone through, while I was unconscious, cannot have been easy at all." His eyes were soft, his voice as gentle as it could be, because he could only imagine the strength it had taken to resist a Sith Master that powerful.

Especially one that had been a friend, supposedly.

Anakin wanted to say he was fine, wanted Obi-Wan to back off -- wanted him not to know, not to see -- but that softness, the sheer... concern and affection, the open worry all sliced straight through his battered defenses and into the well of rage and agony boiling under his skin. His hands fisted, locking into themselves, and he couldn't manage to yank his eyes from Obi-Wan's as he shuddered once. 

It had felt so good. So simple, so right. The Force had flowed so easily through him, he'd known exactly what to do, how to move, winning had been as simple as deciding to -- 

\-- and he'd wanted to kill. He'd _wanted_ it, until Dooku looked up and demanded it of him. 

"I -- " 

Obi-Wan took in a deep breath. He then moved to where he could lay a hand on Anakin's shoulder, just carefully willing his friend to be strong a bit longer. "It never gets easy, Anakin, resisting that call to right all the wrongs in a flick of the lightsaber. But, I have faith in you to continue holding back that tide.

"You did admirably today; I think you need to hear that, even if the other Masters are too caught in the politics of the moment to remember to say it." Obi-Wan then gave him a smile, sad as it was. "I can stay here, at least a night, before Cody will be yelling at me for being outside of his area of operations, if you wish to come back by later?"

He knew that Anakin had somewhere he'd rather be, but he wanted to be sure the younger man knew he was available. As he'd come to understand just what happened while he was unconscious, he'd felt his blood run cold, worrying over Anakin. 

'It never gets easy'? 

Anakin stared at his best friend wide-eyed, the tumult in his mind shutting off for a moment in simple and complete shock. Obi-Wan, who hated to fight more than most (and was still one of their best, almost as good as he was), could say that, and so obviously (with the Force flowing so clear and bright, almost enough to blind him) mean it? 

What didn't he know about his Master, his brother? And the praise... how did that still so completely wreck any trace of his composure, turn him into an exultant boy again? "I -- thank you, Master. Obi-Wan. It... that means the worlds to me." 

Rex would have been complaining as loudly as Cody, if -- 

\-- no, he wasn't going to think about that, either. Not now. "I'll be back," he agreed, even as relief slammed through him that Obi-Wan wasn't going to insist on _now_. 

"Make sure you eat!" Obi-Wan reminded, before stepping away and clearing the path for Anakin to get to his Senator, all without letting on he knew just where the Knight would be going. That was one thing that needed to stay secret a bit longer, or the scandal would pull things away from where they needed to be focused. 

He then made his way to his own quarters, possibly to eat, more likely to pass out. How long had he been going this time? It didn't bear thinking about.

+++++

Padmé did not like being out of the loop. She knew the attack had been contained. She knew some of her colleagues had been summoned to the Jedi Temple, but then the news had faltered. 

Threepio came in, and she hoped that meant news.

"Mistress Padmé, I have just been contacted by R2-D2, on behalf of Master Anakin," he said. "Master Anakin requests you try strongly to wait for him to arrive before responding to the Senate's call… which I have not yet received. Is Artoo malfunctioning?"

Anakin! 

He was here?! He was finally back on Coruscant? She hadn't dared hope he would be, not after five months of his being locked to the Outer Rim like it had a tractor beam on it. Five months when she'd been stuck on Coruscant, barred from the Rim by the complete cessation of negotiations... but he was here now. 

She smiled, shaking her head. "No, Threepio. It means I will be called shortly. Please have Sabé and Rabé prepare to escort me there soon, but without a firm timetable."

"As you wish, Mistress." Threepio left to do as bidden, and Padmé moved to get herself dressed while she waited for her husband. Oh this was so difficult, with everything of the battle and the kidnapping and… her news. How was she going to manage to tell him when he probably needed her to be strong?

She sorted out which dress she could best disguise her condition with, and began settling into it, using the ritual of dressing to calm her mind.

++++

For the thousandth time, Anakin was grateful that Padmé had a landing pad of her own attached to her Senatorial quarters -- it was the only thing that made getting to her at times like this even vaguely possible. He left Artoo in control of the skimmer, telling him to go set it down in the typical bay, and jumped for it from a full traffic-level above it, bleeding off the energy in a roll that took him all the way to the shadows. Then he was on his feet again and following the trace of her presence to reach her. 

Oh, but she was beautiful.

She caught sight of him in her mirror, already working on her hair, and stopped to turn, setting her brush down.

"Anakin?" she asked quietly, caught by the look on his face as he appraised her. Sometimes, when he did that, she felt like he didn't see her, but the Angel he called her, and she didn't know how to live up to that. "Are you okay?" She moved toward him, worried and relieved all in one. 

He started to tell her he was fine, but the lie locked itself in his throat -- /deception, trickery, the way of the Sith are/ echoed in his mind -- and he shook his head once, the concern in her voice undoing him as much as Obi-Wan's had. He crossed the rest of the little distance to her, now that she'd turned to him, and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in the oddly simple arrangement of her hair to breathe the scent of it to keep himself from collapsing. 

She brought her arms up around him, hoping he didn't hold her too tight, while wanting him to do just that and not let go.

"I love you, Anakin," she told him reminding him of the core of who they were.

"I love you," he answered her, instant, his grip tightening a little more as she caught on to him. Loving her was the center of his universe, the reason he existed, everything he could ever want... and she returned it. Miracle of miracles, she returned it. 

She loved him, she was _his wife_ , and this war... this war would soon be over. It would be over, and as soon that happened, as soon as he knew that all of his men were going to be safe, and **free**... He was going to tell the entire universe, especially the Council, that it could go straight to hell for all he cared, he was going to spend the rest of his life as Padmé Amidala Naberrie-Skywalker's husband. "I love you so much, Padmé. I've missed you so terribly." 

"Oh, Ani, I missed you!" She managed, barely, to head off the hormonal surge toward tears; she could not afford to cry when apparently she was expecting to be called to the Senate anytime now. She just held onto him tighter, closing her eyes as the round, hard swell of her body made contact. He had to know, but oh this was not how she'd wanted to tell him, with something hanging over them all. "I--"

He felt her emotions surge as though they were his own, joy and... and tears? Why was she --? 

He hummed at her, tucking her closer in against his body, trying to soothe her as he sank a little deeper into the Force, trying to read what was wrong. He froze in shock in the next moment. Her presence was different -- her, there, the same as she always was, gleaming with life and love, but... there was another presence, too? A young, new, bright being resting curled in Padmé's. 

But they'd been being careful. Naboo was not a world where a young woman thought to be unmarried could bear a child without scandal, and he would _never_ expose her to that! They'd been so -- 

\-- but that didn't matter. She was pregnant. She -- his wife was -- 

He shifted his weight, drawing his head back to see her face, wanting to be certain of her thoughts, her wishes here... "Padmé?" 

He knew he was smiling, knew there was an exultant hope written across his face, and didn't care. 

"Oh, oh!" She flung herself up on her toes and wrapped her hands up behind his head, tangling her fingers in his hair to drag his mouth down for a kiss. He looked happy with it, and that was all that mattered to her. After she broke from the kiss, she sighed softly. She'd only been able to share this with her handmaidens here; no one else knew. The med-droid that had confirmed it had personally been wiped by Sabé. "We're having a baby, Anakin."

He had lost himself in kissing her, the urgency of her mouth and her hand in his hair enough to wipe everything else away, to make him lose all track of time. It could have been moments, it could have been hours, he didn't know and didn't care. Padmé had him, and that was all he needed to know. He chased her mouth for a moment when she broke the kiss, but the sigh was one that meant she wanted to talk, so he paused. 

Her words echoed in his mind, echoed through the air, and again, everything stopped. 

At least he'd already decided. This was only another reason. He'd had more than enough of those already, but this... this was the one he would let nothing stop him for. "I -- oh, Padmé, love, that... that's wonderful...." 

She breathed out in full relief then, before trying to get hold of his hands. "Now, your message implies I don't have much time. So tell me what you can about this? Obviously, you're here, so you must have been recalled to deal with it." She was beaming, despite getting to business, because he was happy with their child. That was all she needed to get her through the secrecy.

He shook his head at her, amazed at her ability to focus away from her emotions to her duty, her focus... but he could feel her relief, too. And her beaming smile, her tight grip on him, was soothing too. 

As though he could be anything but happy, overjoyed, when somehow his Padmé was going to have a child? 

"Obi-Wan and I, yes," he agreed, trying to hold on to the thought of their child, of her joy to see him, against -- against everything he was going to have to tell her -- 

"It. It got... ugly. We captured Dooku, but -- oh love I'm so _sorry_..." 

Sorry he was going to have to tell her, sorry the man they had trusted had lied to and used them both, sorry he was dead... 

"Obi-Wan? He's not… no, you would be devastated," she said, having felt a surge of panic at that last. "What is it?" She searched his face, trying to grasp at why he would be apologizing.

"He's fine," Anakin agreed hastily, and his hands shook in hers as he tried to find the words to answer her question. "The -- the Chancellor is... is dead," he managed to push the words out, clinging to her. 

Padmé immediately drew him with her to the nearest surface she could sit on, bringing him down with her to hold him close. No matter her political problems with the man of late, he had been a friend to Anakin, and she could not bear for him to be so hurt.

"Ani, I'm sorry," she said softly, running a hand up to pet his hair.

He curled himself against her, remembered the child she carried, and shifted her into his lap, arms wrapping close around her, leaning into her hand as his voice locked in his throat. Her instant, open sympathy, her concern _hurt_ , with the rest of what he had to tell her. He felt the tears coming up and didn't know if they were tears of rage or pain or both, and he shuddered as he tried to fight them back. 

"Let it out, husband, let it out." She knew he was trying to be strong. She knew he shouldn't have to, not in this moment. "Just let it flow, Anakin." She stroked through his hair, kissing the side of his head. 

He didn't know what noise he made, whimper or hiss or moan, but he couldn't fight her -- there was no universe in which he could conceive of fighting her -- and he buried his face against her shoulder now, clinging to his wife as sobs and tears ripped their way out of his throat and his eyes. He knew better than to show weakness like this, but it... it was Padmé... 

It hurt. Her concern hurt, his rage hurt, the loss hurt -- the taint on every memory of his friend hurt, more. The knowledge he had now, that he had never really been a friend, that the Chancellor had meant only to use him, to twist him from what he should be into a _Sith_ burned like fire down his veins and poisoned every memory. The moments of praise, the soft, 'Good, Anakin' he'd come to treasure all twisting into that laughingly vicious 'Good, now kill him!' and ringing in his ears. Nausea boiled in his throat, but that, at least, he could still control even as he wept on her shoulder, breathing in ragged, choked gasps when he could breathe at all. 

Padmé had known it would hurt Anakin to release the pain… but this was more than grieving a friend. There was something physical in the air as her husband let his emotions free, and she held onto him with all she had, trying to be his anchor against his demons.

What could this be? What had happened to force this much of a breakdown on her beloved Ani?

She was his bedrock, his safety, his shelter, and Anakin had no idea how long it had been before the well of his tears ran dry and his lungs slowly stopped seizing on the air. Now he felt... numb, all the way through, like he'd been out on the Ilum surface in nothing, but that was easier than all the rest of it. 

"...sorry, Angel," he said -- well, tried to. It came out as more of a croak. 

"It's alright, Anakin," she told him softly. "I am worried, though."

He sighed, lifting one hand from her hip to scrub across his face and wipe the tears away, swallowing repeatedly until he thought he could actually manage to speak. "I... I don't know how to say it. Obi-Wan took care of all the talking, at the Temple, I --"

She kissed the side of his head again, holding him close to her, and made a quiet, soothing sound. "Whatever it is, it's why I am going to be called to the Senate? Would it be easier for me to learn there? So you don't have to say it?"

He nodded once, feeling that it was jerky and rough, before he lifted his head to meet her eyes, answer that kiss with a momentary one for her. "Easier, probably. 

"Maybe if I start from the other direction, it will be easier," he said, thoughtful, and tried to convince himself it would be. "We managed to capture Count Dooku — okay, by 'we' there I actually mean _I_ , Obi-Wan was unconscious well before the end of the fight — Dooku suddenly became willing to sell out Sidious in exchange for his life." 

Padmé listened, alarmed that her beloved had been forced to carry a fight against a man that had, by both Anakin's and Obi-Wan's admissions, fought them both to a standstill or even defeat, multiple times. She also worried for their dear friend, worried as to how injured he might be… but at least Anakin was whole in body, if not heart.

Her worry washed along his senses, her protective concern, and he shook his head as he lifted his eyes to hers again. "He's all right. I always said his head was harder than the bulkheads, now I have proof?" 

The weak attempt at a joke didn't go far, but he'd had to try. "Anyway. It... he only turned on Sidious because his Master was going to sacrifice him in order to... to make _me_ Fall. If he -- " 

"I don't … no … you wouldn't, Ani," Padmé protested. "You're the man who loves so deeply, cares so much that you ache in my arms for all you can't do! You wouldn't!"

Her faith in him, when he had come _so close_ \-- that cut worse than Dooku's lightsaber taking off his forearm had. It felt like a lightsaber wound, but one that sank straight through his chest and stayed lodged there. He preferred the numbness to this... but he'd needed that, needed to hear her remind him of who he was, who he had to be. 

He leaned to kiss her cheek, light, and held her a little closer. "I... I came so close, Padmé. If Dooku hadn't spoken when he did, if he hadn't told me what was happening... I -- I think I would have obeyed. I mean... It was the Chancellor talking." 

There was a long silence, as Padmé truly processed what Anakin was saying. "Sidious… is, no, was the Chancellor?" she whispered, trying comprehend it.

Unfortunately, the thought of how the Chancellor gained his office came right on the heels of that, and she sobbed a little, choking it back, as the deaths of every one of the clones lost so far, the civilians, the Jedi that had already died…. all of that rested on one choice she had let the man push her to?

He nodded, watching her face -- and then she was sobbing, an agonizing wash of guilt pouring from her to him, and he shook his head sharply, gathering her in closer. "No, no... Padmé, no, sweetheart... It's not _your_ fault the rest of them kept extending his term, no, don't..."

"So many deaths, Anakin, all because I was too inexperienced!" She held on, trying to grapple this down into the locked box of her mind that let her handle politics with a cool head. "I'm sorry, Ani… I know, you thought he was your friend and that's a far worse betrayal on the personal level," she apologized. "I just… if I had listened to Master Jinn and trusted in Valorum, we might not be at this point!"

He shook his head slightly, running his fingers over part of her hair, light and gentle, looking into her pained, dark eyes. It was easier to focus on her, on the hurt he could feel in her, on convincing her to stop blaming herself, than on the ache in his own chest that was trying to come back into focus. "You had no reason _not_ to trust him, Padmé. ...none of us had any reason not to trust him. 

"I didn't understand much -- okay, any -- of the politics then, but... do you really think that Queen Jamillia wouldn't have listened to him then, in your place?" 

Padmé took a deep breath. "No, you're right." She shifted so she could kiss him very gently. "Come sit with me at my dressing table. I need to finish getting ready. But I need you to promise me to go back to Obi-Wan and not be alone when I have to leave."

He kissed her in return, once she'd spoken, and nodded. "Of course I'm right," he told her, and even managed to get a little bit of a smile to come up on his lips, "it's me. And... I promise. I already told him I'd be back later. 

"...are you sure I have to let you out of my arms?" 

"Unfortunately, husband." She sighed. "I cannot avoid being there; it would look suspicious for my system. Nor can I ask Jar Jar to handle it in my absence, for similar reasons. I have to be proactive in the coming sessions, and just hope I don't outstrip my ability, and Rabé's, at costuming to keep our secret a while longer."

He grumbled, hating that she was right, hating that it was so true, that she absolutely **had** to be there, to protect Naboo and the rest of the sector from the appearance that they had known. He opened his arms unwillingly, and followed her towards the dressing table once she started moving. 

"It won't have to be much longer?" he offered softly. "There are only three things left on my list before I tell the Order what I think of their 'no attachments' policy and throw myself on your mercies..." 

She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "I think you should discuss it with Obi-Wan first," she counseled him. "It doesn't have to be all or nothing. That's what negotiation and effecting change are for." She then smiled prettily at him. "But, you are my husband. The only mercy you need to worry about is just how and when I will let you out of my sight once we can be together fully."

He laughed softly, lifting one of her hands to his lips, his eyes on her face -- knowing he was giving her exactly the look she'd once told him not to because it 'makes me uncomfortable' -- as he answered. "And why would I want to be, my wife?" 

The idea of discussing this with Obi-Wan... both frightened him and was finally, just maybe, an option. As soon as Grievous was confirmed dead, there was ink on a peace treaty, and all of the _Vod'e_ were free to live their own kriffing lives as they chose, nothing the Council could do to him would matter. 

Not when he had a wife and child to keep him steady. 

Padmé laughed softly, but her eyes were smoldering with promises for when they could be together without the need for her to leave so soon. "Well, I suspect there will be things you want to do that don't include me.

"And better not involve pod-racing," she said, mock-glaring at him.

"...maybe in a few months," he had to admit, though the thought of being able to fly for things that didn't involve war, of having the freedom and time to tinker again, to build, maybe create... oh, that was a delightful thought. Almost as delightful as that smoldering burn in her eyes.


End file.
